Month: January 2008

It's that time of the year again, PodCamp Toronto is once again taking place at Rogers Communications Center in Toronto, Canada. If you're in/around/close to toronto on the weekend of Feb 23-24 make sure you drop by and check it out...It's FREE. The complete video archive of last years podcamp is also online so be sure to check it out. More info here.

Thanks to MIT, you can now learn how to program your PS3, and any other Cell Processor based gadget. Prof. Saman Amarasinghe and Dr. Rodric Rabbah have put together a wonderful free course on Multicore Programming using the PS3's Cell Processor. Course 6.189, Multicore Programming Primer: Learn and Compete in Programming the PLAYSTATION®3 Cell Processor can be attended online here.Course DescriptionThe course will briefly cover the history of the microprocessor evolution, and discuss the reasons for the recent shift in architecture design toward multicores. Students will become familiar with the Cell processor that powers the PLAYSTATION®3, and how its design choices compare to other emerging architectures.Students will also learn different programming models for parallel architectures. There will be small hands-on labs to experiment and understand the pros and cons of…

Continuing with our coverage of "Free your Apps", here is how you can free your Server (and workstation) of those expensive (usually useless) so-called Enterprise Applications. BitNami stacks make it incredibly easy to install your favorite open source server software. Application stacks include an open source application and all the dependencies necessary to run it, such as Apache, MySQL and PHP or Ruby. All you need to do is download the Stack, provide a few pieces of information when prompted by the installation wizard, and that's it. By the time you click 'finish', your new application will be ready to run. All stacks have been packaged using BitRock's multiplatform installer.Bitnami Infrastructure stacks are designed for developers and system administrators and provide you a way of installing a LAMP or Ruby…

Are you constantly hearing about Open Source software and are wondering how to go about getting started. Do you want to cleanse your Mac or PC from all those so called advanced applications that don't do what they advertise, yet take up all the diskspace on your computer. Or maybe you're just sick of BSOD'n/Beachball'n apps that you brand new computer came loaded with and are ready for some Open Source Lovin'. Well WinLibre and MacLibre have your answer. Both are free to download and both offer you an easy way to install the best Open Source Apps that are out there.MacLibre Featured applicationsCreateAudacityBlenderGimpInkscapeInternetAdiumColloquyCyberduckFireFirefoxNvuThunderbirdViennaMultimediaHandBrakeMPlayerVLCOfficeAbiWordNeoOfficeUtilitiesClamXavDesktopManageriTermVirtueDesktopsX11WinLibre Featured applicationsCreateAudacityBlenderGimpInkscapeInternetNVUFirefoxGaimThunderbirdFileZillaMultimediaWinLAMECDexVLCZinfOfficePDFCreatorOpenOfficeUtilitiesClamWinNotepad27-ZipTightVNCNetTime

A buddy of mine (thanks Mike) showed me this today. There is a input Access module in the newer versions of VLC (0.8.6+) called "screen" which makes this possible. To stream your desktop to another machine (ip address: 192.168.1.2 in this case) just use the following command in Linux (sorry command line only):vlc screen:// :screen-fps=30 :screen-caching=100 --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=4096,acodec=mpga,ab=256,scale=1,width=1280,height=800}:rtp{dst=192.168.1.2,port=1234,access=udp,mux=ts}'or in Windows (slightly different syntax) use this command:vlc screen:// :screen-fps=30 :screen-caching=100 :sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=2048,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=rtp,mux=ts,dst=192.168.1.1:1234}}This is one massive command, so lets take a look at it in more detail:screen:// is our input module selection (if you just run vlc screen:// you'll see your own screen on the server inside vlc....kinda cool):screen-fps=30 specifies that we want to screengrab at 30 fps (from default 5 fps):screen-caching=100 sets the internal caching to 100ms (from default 300 ms)--sout is…

Well, you learn something new everyday. Here is what I picked up today....If you ever install an application that came as a OSX package, there is a good chance that the installer has installed files all over your machine. There is also a good chance that the installer has left you a little gift -- a way out if you like -- in /Library/Receipts folder on your mac.You see, if the author/packager has done their job correctly (most do), there is a Bill Of Material (known as a bom file) that is copied onto your system. In the example below I wanted to check the files that got installed on my machine by the MacFUSE installer so here are the commands I issued:Brainiac:/ mayromlou$ cd /Library/Receipts/MacFUSE\ Core.pkg/Contents/Brainiac:Contents mayromlou$ lsArchive.bom Info.plist…

Okay so hot on the heels of my MacFUSE install, I find iTunesFS which is a FUSE module for iTunes written by Marcus Müller.....YUMMY :-). Now it's a read-only module (ie: it lets you take stuff out of itunes/ipod/iphone storage, but most of the time that's all you want to do anyways. If you want to try it just download the FUSE module from Mulle KybernetiK. Make sure you have the MacFUSE core package installed first.

I think so, you see I've been waiting for about a year -- since last years Mac World announcement -- to try MacFUSE, but to be honest I've been a bit of a chicken. In my book you rarely, if ever, play around with the filesystem. Specially with ported beta code and all the "uncertainties" of Apple's latest feline.Anyways, today I finally got up the courage and had enough time to try out MacFUSE 1.1.1 (specially compiled for leopard). You can download the required files from the Google Code's download page. For those of you who don't know, FUSE stands for Filesystem in USErland, and it provides a generic interface that lets the operating system see virtually anything as a filesystem. FUSE provides a single interface that filesystem modules use…